The present invention relates to an automatic money depositing and disbursing machine in which deposited notes are circulated and utilized again as notes to be defrayed. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mechanism for monitoring a quantity of notes accumulated in note accumulating boxes and a mechanism for making an initial setting of the monitoring mechanism for use in the automatic money depositing and disbursing machine.
The conventional automatic money depositing and disbursing machine has depositing and disbursing functions independently. Namely, the conventional automatic money depositing and disbursing machine is required to have a depositing function of discriminating, one by one, received notes inserted in a receiving section receiving the notes judged as being true notes and returning the notes judged as being not true notes, and a disbursing function of temporarily storing notes to be disbursed, which are fed from a disbursing box while detecting double feeding and incorporation of different kinds of notes, disbursing the notes when a predetermined number of notes are stored without detection of any disorder, and feeding the normal notes already stored and notes judged as being abnormal notes to a reject body when a disorder is detected before a predetermined number of notes are stored and repeating the disbursing operation from the beginning.
The sections for performing the above-mentioned depositing and disbursing functions should be arranged completely independently from each other so as to avoid incorporation of deposited notes and disbursed notes. Accordingly, it is considered that depositing and disbursing units having the above functions, respectively, are constructed independently and they are combined together to form an automatic money depositing and disbursing machine. However, if both the depositing and disbursing units are simply combined together, the size of the automatic money depositing and disbursing machine is increased and the structure is complicated.
In order to eliminate this disadvantage, there has been proposed a machine in which deposited notes are sorted and contained in note boxes arranged for the respective kinds of notes and the notes contained in these boxes are delivered and utilized as notes to be defrayed, for example, a circulation type money depositing and disbursing machine disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification No. 33757/81. However, circulation of deposited notes for utilizing them as notes to be defrayed has already been performed manually, and a problem how to perform circulation effective is still kept unsolved.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification No. 33757/81, there is adopted a method in which received true notes are distributed into note boxes for the respective kinds from above and are accumulated therein and at the time of disbursement, the accumulated notes are delivered out one by one from the lower notes by utilizing the gravity of the notes. In this conventional technique, depositing and disbursing openings should be formed on the upper and lower portions of each note box, and the structure becomes complicated. Furthermore, in order to circulate notes, it is necessary to arrange a passage for delivering upward notes delivered out from the lower portion of the note box, and the note box should be attached and drawn out so that the note box does not intersect this delivery passage. Accordingly, the direction of attaching and drawing out the note box is limited to one direction.
According to the setting condition, automatic money depositing and disbursing machines are divided into two types, that is, the lobby type (the machine is set mainly in a lobby of a bank and note boxes are attached from the side where a customer performs the operation) and the embodded type (the machine is set mainly in an unmanned store or corner, only the portion for the operation of the customer is arranged on the machine-embedded wall and note boxes are attached from a different room on the inner side of the wall). If the direction of attaching and drawing out the note boxes is limited to one direction, the automatic money depositing and disbursing machine can be used for only the lobby type or the embedded type. Therefore, automatic money depositing and disbursing machines or both the types should be independently arranged for the respective uses exclusively, resulting in increases of the costs. Moreover, the adaptability to changes of setting conditions are very poor.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 141315/81, there is provided an automatic money depositing and disbursing machine in which a note transfer mechanism for feeding notes into boxes from above and containing the notes therein and also for delivering upward the notes contained in the boxes and feeding the notes into a note circulating delivery passage is arranged below the note circulating delivery passage for circulating deposited notes and utilizing them as notes to be defrayed, and a plurality of boxes are independently arranged so that the boxes can be drawn out in optional directions.